Is there a safety case to ground Qantas pending job cuts?
Ben Sandilands | Feb 26, 2014 10:20AM | EMAIL | PRINT
CASA accepted a need to ground Qantas on safety grounds at the request of management in 2011 when it stranded its customers all around the world to brow beat the Labor government and Fair Work Australia. What is it doing about the current threats to fire thousands of staff?
Back in 2011, when Qantas CEO Alan Joyce grounded the airline and stranded 70,000 passengers and cost shareholders $198 million in a gross
PR stunt, it made a detailed safety case which CASA accepted that the grounding was justified because of its psychological impact on pilots and staff.
That meant that Qantas did not bring its jets home from overseas ports during the shut down, but put all of its aircraft on the ground at the same time.
Today independent SA Senator Nick Xenophon has written to CASA asking why the unprecedented anxiety and turmoil in Qantas employees in advance of tomorrow’s promised massive job cutbacks ought not require CASA to again ground Qantas because of the ‘human factors’ involved.
Xenophon’s call follows this
sharp criticism of Alan Joyce by The Australian’s business columnist John Durie.
ALAN Joyce and his team at Qantas seem intent on trashing their brand and destroying staff morale the way they are handling the impending release of the company’s latest financial numbers on Thursday.
The extraordinary reliance on megaphone diplomacy, open crawling to the government for help and deliberately fanning job-cut rumours ranks as some of the most dumb-witted communications strategies this country has ever seen.
Xenophon has also written to CASA because of representations to him by deeply concerned Qantas employees.
This is how Xenophon outlines his concerns in the context of the 2011 grounding stunt in a letter to the outgoing Director of Aviation Safety at CASA, John McCormick:
I refer to your evidence provided to the Senate Rural Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee inquiry on 24 November 2011, regarding the circumstances detailed by Qantas management of a safety case deemed sufficient by CASA to agree to a cessation of flying operations by Qantas domestic and international fleets. I note that the decision was supported by CASA and acceptance of the risks outlined by management was deemed sufficient to facilitate a previously unprecedented event in the Australian airline industry.
I note that the CEO of Qantas, Mr Alan Joyce, stated in his evidence to that inquiry on 4 November 2011:
“We were telling people about the safety concerns we had. I got a note from CASA saying that they were keeping us under close monitoring, because industrial relations and the human factors issues around it becomes a concern for them. So we were explaining to everybody what was taking place and the rapid deterioration that was occurring within the Group.”
This statement followed the statement that Mr Joyce made on 28 October 2011, the day of the grounding, and referred to and quoted directly by you in your evidence to the Senate committee on 24 November 2011:
“It bears repeating that the specific driver for immediate grounding of the airline was not related to the airline and fleet health metrics, but rather to the potential human factor threats that might be generated in response to the company announcement of lockout. The grounding which occurred coincident with the announcement to lockout was a conservative measure taken to mitigate a potential increase to risk.”
As speculation mounts regarding the magnitude of job losses at Qantas, I would be grateful if you could advise, as a matter of urgency, what attention has been directed by CASA to safety-related risks.
I note human factors were considered by CASA in the context of the grounding in 2011.
Is CASA of the view that the ‘distraction’ being experienced by safety critical employees in the context of current speculation of mass job losses is of a lesser magnitude than that which occurred in October 2011?
I note that the decision to ground the domestic Qantas fleet in 2011 affected employees not involved in any industrial action. They presumably would not have had reasonable grounds to be distracted by fear of a lockout. In the current circumstance, management has repeatedly stated, ‘all options are on the table’ and the cuts will be greater in proportion to those at American Airlines under Chapter 11. Therefore the current impact on safety critical employees could reasonably be expected to be far greater in terms of distraction than in 2011.
Could you please advise how CASA is presently satisfying itself that Qantas’ is continuing to operate according to Australian safety regulations.
Has CASA obtained from Qantas an ongoing basis an assessment of risks to the safe operation of aircraft as speculation continues to mount as to the magnitude of job losses to impact safety critical employees?
It is clear to me that from a human factors perspective, job losses of this reported magnitude will have impacts far beyond any consequences of an industrial dispute. Given the wide ranging cuts mooted by management, is CASA concerned that there will be continued distraction until all matters pertaining to employment are resolved?
As such, what does CASA plan to do in order to ensure that the public remains confident that Qantas will continue to provide acceptably safe flight operations? This premise was the basis of CASA’s public support of the grounding of Qantas domestic and International on 29 October 2011.
Given I have been contacted directly by concerned employees of Qantas, I will be releasing this letter to the public. I look forward to your urgent response.